LAMAG.com recently published the following piece about a transmedia comic book collaboration between Art Center alums, Nick Ebeling BFA FILM 01 and A.P. Menzies BFA FILM 00. Please join us in thanking LAMAG for graciously allowing us to deliver this inspiring story of creative ingenuity to your digital doorstep.
Author Archives: Christine Spines
Explore the art of border crossing with Morgan Fisher: scholar, sculptor, filmmaker and conceptual artist
Morgan Fisher’s New Alien Pendant Pair Paintings
Conceptual artist and filmmaker, Morgan Fisher, will discuss his vast and eclectic body of work at Art Center College of Design on Tuesday, March 25 at 7:30 p.m. at the Los Angeles Times Media Center.
At first glance, it’s hard to connect the dots comprising the details of Morgan Fisher’s early biography. He was born in Washington, D.C. in 1942. He studied the history of 19th and 20th century art at Harvard University. Then he studied film production in Los Angeles, first at USC and then at UCLA.
His creative path started to coalesce, however, once he landed in L.A. and committed himself to filmmaking. He began making independent films in 1968 while complementing his own avant-garde filmmaking, working as a teacher at Art Center and in various capacities on Hollywood productions, including as Roger Corman’s editor. Fisher’s films have been shown at festivals such as Pesaro, Oberhausen, Rotterdam, Berlin, and New York; and at museums such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate Modern, and Centre Pompidou.
Of one minute wonders and sustainable paper planes: February’s Art Center alumni notes
Hiroshi Sugimoto’s design for for his museum complex in Odawara, Japan
From art installations inspired by NASA’S space oddities to a self-styled museum in Japan: Art Center alums have been busy in February. Read on for more details about last month’s alumni accomplishments, including Designmatters’ new alumni engagement efforts.
News
Dan Goods GRPK 02 was featured in a story on Yahoo News about his work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Yahoo
Satyendra Pakhalé PROD 94 discussed his design process and curiosity in a One Minute Wonder video. One Minute Wonder
Hiroshi Sugimoto PHOT 74 has announced plans to design and build a new museum for his work, the Odawara Art Foundation, which will be located in Odawara Japan. Wall Street Journal Blog
Jennie Warren PHOT 05 collaborated with Welsh singer Cate Le Bon and illustrator Erin Althea and on a series of promotional images for Cate’s upcoming tour. Erin Althea’s Blog
SXSW Interactive 2014 wrap-up: Chelsea Clinton, Neil Young and Toms.com
Chelsea Clinton at SXSW Interactive 2014
The final day of SXSW Interactive has now taken on a different cast; in light of the tragic car crash that claimed two festival-goers’ lives and injured many more. Our deepest condolences go out to the families of those victims.
Even though the festival was technically winding down; passion, engagement and insight revved high throughout the day’s panels and presentations. The conference had successfully lived up to its interactive title. Many themes in the 2014 program were plucked from a virtual suggestion box, including this year’s focus on tech’s role in social change, culminating with Chelsea Clinton’s galvanizing closing keynote address (more on that later). In fact, all of the events we attended on that final day—from presentations by TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie—were informed, either directly or indirectly, by a socially conscious approach to technological innovation.
Art, science, wearable tech and viral video: Art Center at SXSW Interactive
There are as many ways to describe a day immersed in South by Southwest Interactive programming as there were LED screens lighting up every available space around the Convention Center in downtown Austin. But, like many of the tech pilgrims who made their way to this digital mecca, our epic first day at the conference was spent soaking in a free-flowing cascade of ideas about how innovation and technology can be leveraged to improve the way we interact with our work, home, communities, passions and the larger world around us. And at the end of an enlightening eight hours’ worth of events, we came away feeling more energized than exhausted—as if we had just taken a multi-vitamin full of more than the daily recommended amount of inspiration.
This is noteworthy because the same cannot be said of the movie or music components of SXSW, or any other festival for that matter. Skeptical? Good. Read on.
Art Center @ SXSW 2014: Choice program and party picks for artists, designers and innovators
Lady Gaga announced, earlier this week, that she’d make her SXSW debut, headlining the music festival on March 13. But the biggest surprise was not that the mother of all little monsters would join the hordes of outliers, outcasts, oddballs and out there futurists making the pilgrimage to the annual Austin cultural convergence. It’s that she waited this long to get there. “[I'll be performing] as part of the Born This Way Foundation night on the Doritos stage,” she said via video. “I believe being an individual and speaking your mind is one of the boldest things you can do. I will be celebrating that Thursday night. We are for the bold. This is a very special show…only people who prove their boldness are able to get in.”
Spacing out with NASA resident artist (and Art Center alum) Dan Goods
Dan Goods drilled a hole in a grain of sand to illustrate the Milky Way’s small size in relation to the universe
Rebecca Gross is a writer-editor for the National Endowment for the Arts.This article was provided to Live Science in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts for Live Science’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
When Dan Goods was studying graphic design, he figured he’d probably end up at an ad agency or some sort of commercial corporation. But these days, he tackles bigger artistic concerns than choosing an appropriate typeface, layout and color. Much bigger. Like Jupiter-sized big.
For the past 10 years, Goods has worked as a visual strategist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. He works to translate the technical, data-driven language of JPL’s missions into engaging, public-friendly works of art. When negotiating his position, the original idea was that Goods would create visualizations communicating JPL’s work. But the artist pushed back: He didn’t want people simply to see the universe; he wanted them to feel it.
Faculty member, Sean Adams awarded the AIGA Medal, design’s equivalent of the Best Picture Oscar
Art Center faculty member Sean Adams and his partner Noreen Morioka are among a special class of design leaders being awarded the prestigious AIGA Medal–the highest honor of the design profession–by the noted professional association, which represents and advocates for a broad range of design disciplines. The AIGA Medal has been awarded since 1920 to individuals in recognition of their exceptional achievements, service and contributions to the field of communication design.
Sean Adams is a partner with Noreen Morioka at AdamsMorioka. Since 1994, AdamsMorioka’s driving words of “clarity, purity and resonance” have guided their work. Among the projects showcased by AIGA in announcing the award, is work for clients such as UCLA, The Getty Center, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Nickelodeon, Annenberg Foundation and Sundance Institute.
Check out the latest videos from Art Center’s Myspace occupants
Update: Shortly after the Spring 2014 term passed its half-way point, our participating students (Myspacers?) produced a new set of videos tracking their progress on the path toward creative completion.
Starting a project is never easy. And finishing it is, arguably, even harder. But let’s not underestimate the challenges involved in persisting through the obstacle course of road-blocks artists often face once they’re deep enough into a project that starting over isn’t an option and the finish line isn’t yet in sight.
This extraordinary set of videos (featured on our Myspace page) offers a snapshot of the breathtaking range of creative activity happening at Art Center on any given day.
Photography student Roman Alexander Vargas takes us deeper into his sources of inspiration (Nan Goldin, primarily) for the very personal photo essay he’s creating as he chronicles his initiation into drag queen culture.
Interaction Design student, Inae Song, delivers a dynamic illustration of the iterative process involved in redesigning an interactive digital destination for AIGA, the American professional association for design professionals. For a young designer proving her mettle, it’s hard to think of tougher crowd to please than the members of AIGA. But Song remained undaunted and produced some incredibly compelling work that plays like a tutorial in website design.
Graduate Transportation Design Student, Nish Kamath, bowed out of this step in the process and will rejoin us with a final video revealing the finished product he creates based on his research into traffic patterns in the developing world.
Each of these students defies and exceeds any and all expectations they set forth in their initial videos, leaving us rapt in anticipation of their final installations. Stay tuned.
Last October, Art Center formed an alliance with the newly relaunched Myspace platform, which had reinvented itself as a social network for creative types. Myspace’s elegant interface seemed custom designed for the Art Center community, with each user profile centered around a portfolio of images and videos that comprise the user’s identity by showcasing the evolution of imagination and innovation. In other words, if Mark Zuckerberg had been a student at Art Center, not Harvard, Facebook might have looked a lot like the current iteration of Myspace.
Because Art Center is known for its students’ enterprise and productivity, that creative rigor became the focal point for this partnership. To illustrate this dedication, we recruited four students from four different disciplines (Product Design, Graphic Design, Illustration and Film) and asked them to document their creative process over the course of the term as they complete a project. The results were as inspiring as they were fascinating, providing a panoramic view of the geyser of creativity that is Art Center.
San Marino League hosts highly anticipated Art Walk XXVII to benefit Art Center, The Huntington
The San Marino League, a nonprofit organization of women committed to philanthropic work in the community, has been supporting fine arts in the San Gabriel Valley for almost 60 years. The League’s relationship with Art Center dates back to the College’s earliest days in Pasadena and to date the League has donated more than $580,000 to Art Center.
On Friday, April 4 and Saturday, April 5 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. the League will host its biennial fundraiser, Art Walk XXVII, in appreciation of art, architecture and landscape design. A $40 ticket to Art Walk XXVII provides rare entry into four beautiful Pasadena homes and gardens and grants attendees access to amazing private art collections. The featured homes include a classic Mediterranean with Portuguese chimneys, an exquisitely restored Craftsman Japanese Farmhouse, a grandeur of French regency and a stunningly inspired French Provincial.